I've been using REC nickel silver reel seats with wood inserts on my last couple of fly rods. I like their seats. Well made and very nice. But, they seem a bit heavy and like all nickel silver, get scratched and rough from good use. Not really a problem. Adds character.
However, I'm thinking of using a Fuji-Cobra graphite skeleton reel seat and graphite barrel on my next fly rod. Would this set up be lighter? Maybe more durable for hard use? I think it would look pretty cool. Different anyway. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Todd

Nothing wrong with that. I agree with you that it'd look cool and definitely a bit different. A size 16 or 17 seat works well for the majority of reel feet out there. I used the same cobra graphite finish seat on my fly rod, with a cork insert. Have to warn you though: the cobra graphite finish on the hoods wears off after a while leaving you with black hoods. Admittedly, this seat was on my spin rod before, and saw a lot of hard use. It'd definitely last a bit longer on a fly rod.

Hello Todd,
The question you raise seems to be about weight. If your current rods are balanced, then the REC reel seats aren't too heavy. If the new rod you plan to build is much lighter than your current rods, and seems to be butt heavy without anything added to the rod blank, then perhaps, you shoud try to have less weight at the butt.

You could of course tape on the guides and slide the grip into place and tape on each of the reel seats in question and see where the balance is. It would be best to also attach the reel you are planning to use. This ought to provide a pretty good estimate of the balance of the rod. From that point you can make your decision.

Good luck,

Mike Blomme

In many cases the graphite seats are lighter. I actually prefer them on my own rods for their superior reel holding ability and usually buy the graphite skeleton seats and turn my own inserts.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2006 05:37PM by Stan Grace.

Sure, there's no physical reason not to. Now you might get made fun of by the FF purist crowd, but if it holds the reel and looks OK to you, who cares?

The Batson / PacBay A5 style uplocking seat with hood is a traditional fly seat but weighs about half of what a comparable REC NS does. I believe it's .70oz vs. around 1.4-1.5oz

Scott Kinney
The Longest Cast Fly Rods
[www.thelongestcast.com]

I'm not overly concerned about weight. Although the lighter the better as far as casting all day goes. I'm using CTS blanks so I'm already starting with the lightest blanks available.
I'm not absolutely sure what it means to have a balanced rod. The rods with the REC seats cast fine and feel balanced. I guess. What would a lighter seat feel like (other than lighter) as far as balancing goes?

You should refer to the common cents articles on line weight and rod balancing. They are available in the library I believe or on the common cents website.

You may not want that light reel seat if your rod is a little tip heavy.

Terry

I find lately that when I am building a heavy use rod for mystelf I sometimes sit down and go through all the reel seat options and still choose a fuji graphite seat. I generally just use the whole thing. I like making inserts, but I usually decide that the little 2 inch piece of wood or cork that shows is not worth disrupting the strength and ease of use of the solid graphite seat. On light fly rods I do use seats with wooden inserts. I don't use the large diameter nickle silver seats. I do like the small diameter Struble.

I have used this very seat on an 8 wt rod. It has held up nicely and has kept reels locked down with no loosening apparent when fished hard. It has helped me tackle Bonefish, Stripers and the biggest Bass and Pike I've ever landed. It definately is light & does look nice. I like the screw-on fighting butt it uses too. Good choice.

2 cents,

Tim